plwagone@ucs.indiana.edu (Paula Wagoner) wrote about the Self-Governance
Demonstration tribes:
>I guess what I have been hearing is that it is termination in
>more "pc" terms.
But, exactly why are people referring to it as a form of termination?
>... for a government which has repeatedly "helped" the Indian
>people (in the "utmost good faith") to ressurect termination
>policy on its own terms is unconsionable.
As Robert Clinton pointed out, the Hoopa/Yurok Settlement Act (PL 100-580,
Oct 31, 1988) contained a buy-out option which sounded alot like termination.
An Indian could join the Yurok tribe and receive $5,000 ($7500 for elders) or
take the $15,000 buyout and give up all rights to the Hoopa and Yurok
tribes/lands.
Note that in PL 100-297 on April 28, 1988, in 102 Stat. 886 section 2502:
(f) The Congress hereby repudiates and rejects House Concurrent
Resolution 108 of the 83rd Congress and any policy of unilateral
termination of Federal relations with any Indian Nation.
Sounds like the Hoopa/Yurok split broke the law of the US...
Also, look at the BIA's proposed changes to their Federal Acknowledgement
Process on Sept 18, 1991 that was published in the Federal Register. If
you're interested , email me for the exact citations in the Federal Register.
The proposed changes would allow *previously recognized tribes* to go
through the acknowledgement process. This seems to be an implicit
admission by the BIA that there exists some tribes (like in California)
that were previously acknowledged and never terminated and do not now appear
on the current list of federally recognized tribes. The proposed rule would
allow these tribes to go through the FAP to prove that they still *exist*
as a tribe and should be included on the list of acknowledged tribes.
Tribes that were previously acknowledged by the BIA and that were never
terminated by Congress should be acknowledged by the BIA now. Period.
It shouldn't be necessary to go through any process to prove the tribe
should be acknowledged now.
But, all the recognized tribes should be paying attention here... by forcing
*previously recognized tribes* to go through the FAP the BIA will be setting
a precedent to challenge the status of tribes that are recognized now. The
BIA could say: "Hey Navajos, we want you to go through our process to prove
that you still exist as a tribe." The BIA could then decide that the
Navajos are not a tribe according to BIA's definition and re-classify them
as an *adult indian community*, i.e. a bunch of random Indians that happen
to live in the same place but having no inherent sovereign powers. This is
termination.
danny ammon
ammon@cs.stanford.edu
ammond@axe.humboldt.edu
PS: If you think the Navajos could easily get through the Federal
Acknowledgement Process, see the FAP ruling that granted
recognition to the San Juan Southern Paiutes. The BIA ruled
that SJSP are not a splinter group off of the Navajos even
though many SJSP are on the "Navajo roll". This is because
the BIA said the "Navajo tribal roll" is not really a tribal
roll; it's just a census. They said the Navajo do not have
a roll now, and that they never have had a tribal roll-there
has only been censuses.... I'm not kidding.